"Well, my friends… what a beating."
I had already been there the whole time, but I enjoy making entrances. Dramaturgy is an underrated art.
The warehouse smelled of old blood and damp dust. Most of them were on the floor. Pearl and Anna were slumped against the wall, trying to recover from what Elijah Mikaelson had done to them as if he were simply rearranging furniture.
"You're late," Damon coughed, dropping to his knees beside Elijah's now "dead" body. "We already had our chat with him."
"So? What did you think about fighting a real old man?" I asked, walking through the wreckage.
"Terrifying…" he answered, still out of breath. "I didn't think the difference would be that big."
Of course he didn't.
They never think about the difference a thousand years makes. A thousand years isn't just experience. It's refinement.
I walked past him and stopped beside Caroline. Her neck was broken, her head resting at an unhealthy angle. Beautiful even like that.
I knelt and lifted her into my arms.
"So, little sister… what did you think?" I asked Bonnie.
She was looking at Elijah with something that wasn't fear.
It was grief.
"It's a shame something so ancient and powerful had to die here."
I tilted my head slightly.
"Don't worry. I don't think a stake is enough to kill something that old."
Her eyes widened.
"He's one of them? An Original?"
"Exactly."
The air grew heavier instantly.
"Then we need to leave. He could come back at any moment."
Finally, someone thinking with their entire brain.
I nodded and raised my voice.
"Kid! Grab your girlfriends. We're leaving. Damon, carry your brother and your girlfriend."
Elena ran toward me.
"Nik!"
Bonnie was faster and grabbed her.
"Elena!"
Good.
Jeremy helped Anna and Pearl to their feet. Damon sighed like a man who had just realized the universe doesn't reward effort.
I looked at Elijah for one more second.
They only "won" because I appeared in the corner and called out to him.
That fraction of hesitation.
My voice echoing like my father's.
Klaus Mikaelson lives on the right frequencies inside his mind.
But what really bothered me was something else.
He isn't awakened.
I felt it.
There's no crack. No second echo behind his eyes. His mind is a straight line. Polished. Controlled.
Of course Esther Mikaelson altered it. Not to weaken him. To organize him. To contain him.
His demon didn't disappear.
It just got lost in the labyrinth his mother built inside his head.
And even so… he wiped the floor with everyone here more easily than he ever would have in the show.
That's interesting.
Very interesting.
"So now what… we bury the body?" Damon asked, staring at Elijah while catching his breath. He was so exhausted he hadn't even heard my conversation with Bonnie.
"No. We burn the house down with him inside. Better than the authorities finding a perfectly preserved millennia-old corpse."
A vampire corpse is still a corpse.
And fire is always a good visual ending.
Damon rubbed his face.
"Fine… let's go. But what were those powers?"
I laughed.
"Figure it out yourself."
He clicked his tongue, annoyed.
We left.
Minutes later, flames began climbing the wooden walls. The fire danced as if it were happy to be part of the performance.
Inside, Elijah's body remained still for a while.
Then the bones began to realign.
The stake slowly pushed itself out of his chest.
His eyes opened in the middle of the smoke.
He stood as the ceiling collapsed.
Fire didn't frighten him.
Intrigue did.
He remembered the voice.
Not exactly like Klaus's.
But close enough to cut through centuries of discipline.
He closed his eyes for a moment in the middle of the flames.
And felt it.
That different energy.
Those vampires.
Something awakened in them.
Something outside the pattern.
He walked out of the burning house, suit scorched but posture intact.
There was no rage on his face.
There was curiosity.
And when a curious Original decides to investigate… it never ends small.
The night ended with no permanent deaths.
But it started something much worse.
Now he wants to understand.
And for someone like Elijah, understanding is only the first step before action.